Pelvic floor muscles tend to weaken with age or other physical conditions, such as lack of use. This weakening can also occur after childbirth. Also, many other women have no conscious control of the pelvic floor muscles and find it difficult to exercise them properly to strengthen them.
Various pelvic floor muscle exercising devices have been developed in an effort to strengthen and give conscious control over these muscles. A weighted, anatomically configured device is inserted into the vagina which tends to slip out. This slipping-out or losing the device feeling provides a biofeedback sensation which makes the pelvic floor muscles contract around the device, thus retaining it and accordingly exercising the pelvic floor muscles.
Currently, several pelvic floor muscle weight training devices are sold on the market. Also, several U.S. patents have described devices for testing and/or strengthening pelvic floor muscles. For example, Plevnik U.S. Pat. No. (4,895,363) disclosed a plurality of pelvic floor muscles exercise weights, each of which is of identical shape and size but of different weight. Each of the weights is made of two materials in varying proportion. A later patent by Plevnik U.S. Pat. No. (5,407,412) further disclosed a physiologically inert plastics outer surface covering each of the weights as described in the '363 patent. A patent by Firth U.S. Pat. No. (5,213,557) disclosed a device for exercising pelvic floor muscles having a set of two or more weights which fit together to form a shape complementary to at least a portion of an internal cavity of a casing.
However, these existing biofeedback devices are expensive to make. Further, many currently available devices have used lead or zinc in their construction. These materials would raise serious health concerns if they were to find their way from within the outer casing to the user's vaginal tissues.
The present invention offers a substantial improvement over existing pelvic floor muscles testing and/or exercising apparatus and methods.